Live Collection brings together every live cover we can find from an artist. And we find a lot.

Remarkably prolific by today’s standards, Ryan Adams has released 12 albums (some solo and some with The Cardinals) since the breakup of his seminal alt-country band Whiskeytown in 2000. Not like your typical modern artist with three or four year gaps between releases. He’s also made friends in high places, including Elton John, Willie Nelson and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. Not just a hard-working studio musician, Adams also tours extensively, with an upcoming European tour marking his return to the stage after his 2009 ‘retirement.’

Never one to hide his influences, Adams regularly includes cover songs as part of his live show. We’ve compiled a selection of his covers for our latest Live Collection. Remember this is no one-album artist. Given his back catalog, Adams chooses covers that, for the most part, really mean something to him. Country and ‘70s rock figure heavily in his choices: five songs associated with Gram Parsons, three classics by The Rolling Stones, and the obligatory Neil Young nod.Continue reading »

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

Michael Gira’s “God Damn the Sun” speaks to depression and loneliness. Unless you’re singing it about skin cancer. Then it’s a little more literal.

Brooklyn songwriter Sean Allen Fenn discovered he had skin cancer last summer when his cat noticed a strange mark on his shoulder. It turned out to signal the early stages of melanoma, but thanks to quick care he escaped the worst. Now he’s raising money to help others in a similar plight with a charity recording of the Swans song. God damn the sun, indeed.Continue reading »